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Speaker 1: Now good news for Wellington because those Hettius Gordon Wilson

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Speaker 1: Flats are going to be bold. The government's changing the RMA,

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Speaker 1: taking away the heritage protection and then they're going to

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Speaker 1: get demolished. Ken Davis is a former teacher at Victoria

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Speaker 1: University School of Architecture who's with us. Now, Hi, Ken, Now,

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Speaker 1: let me guess you love it because it's one of

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Speaker 1: only two examples of the brutalist that's left in the country.

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Speaker 2: Yes, no, I love I don't really love it.

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Speaker 3: I think it's really important why as part of our

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Speaker 3: cultural heritage, and also the fact if we pull it

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Speaker 3: down we are destroying some existing Bible housing units that

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Speaker 3: already exist. They only need to be refurbished, and to

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Speaker 3: destroy them and to demolish them as a waste of

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Speaker 3: embodied energy and carbon, and it's really counter to global

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Speaker 3: trends in sustainable architectural practice. We're the most sustainable building

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Speaker 3: is the existing building.

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Speaker 1: Ken, they're ugly, thought, Well, it's just the.

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Speaker 2: Point of view.

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Speaker 3: I think they're ugly too, but it doesn't mean say

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Speaker 3: you should destroy them.

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Speaker 2: The beehives ugly?

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Speaker 1: Actually should we do that?

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Speaker 2: People's house was ugly? The thought that ugly be destroyed.

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Speaker 1: You're just listing all of these buildings in Wellington that

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Speaker 1: need to be bold because they're hideous.

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Speaker 3: No, there's no justification for pulling them down because you

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Speaker 3: don't like the look of them.

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Speaker 2: In fact, ugly can be quite beautiful.

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Speaker 3: So it's just the it's just the really the leans

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Speaker 3: you look at things through.

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Speaker 1: Really, okay, I mean, you know, me being silly aside,

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Speaker 1: set that aside. These buildings, this particular building is not like.

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Speaker 1: First of all, it is ugly. The brutalist style is ugly.

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Speaker 1: Then you've got the fact that.

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Speaker 2: It's no, no, that's not true.

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Speaker 1: That my argument.

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Speaker 3: Okay, well I've got plenty of counter arguments.

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Speaker 2: Let me go.

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Speaker 1: So it's ugly. Second of all, it's derelict. It's an

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Speaker 1: earthquake problem. Now I take your point that there can

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Speaker 1: be an argument as to whether it is cheaper or

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Speaker 1: not to refurbish this or demolish and start again. But

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Speaker 1: the owner wants to the university wants to demolish and

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Speaker 1: start again, So shouldn't we just let them do that.

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Speaker 3: Well, it was protected for a very long time, over

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Speaker 3: thirty years by the Williamson Council, and then it went

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Speaker 3: to the Environment Court when that was overthrown and reinstated.

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Speaker 3: So there's been a long history of terms of protection.

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Speaker 3: One point is that that isn't an earthquake risk. The

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Speaker 3: twenty fifteen seismic assessment by Becker's demonstrate the building based

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Speaker 3: on the analysis was fifty percent.

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Speaker 2: Of the national building standard.

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Speaker 3: That's well above the thirty four percent that below which

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Speaker 3: buildings become earthquake prone. So in fact it could be

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Speaker 3: reinhabited immediately if it was refurbished.

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Speaker 2: So that's not an argument.

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Speaker 1: Ken out of interest. Where's the other one in the country,

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Speaker 1: the other brutalist building.

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Speaker 3: Well, the other one was Upper Grays Avenue, and sadly,

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Speaker 3: and in an act of cultural vandalism, because Congaroo didn't

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Speaker 3: understand the value of its own architectural heritage and still doesn't,

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Speaker 3: they pulled it down to build a very good development.

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Speaker 2: That's housed many more people.

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Speaker 3: But so that's often the trade off between keeping historic buildings,

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Speaker 3: whether you consider a historical or not, and that loss

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Speaker 3: versus the potential to build more. And in the case

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Speaker 3: of Gray's Avenue, sadly they replaced something that was of

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Speaker 3: significance with something of greater benefit probably, but there's no

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Speaker 3: reason to destroy everything.

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Speaker 2: You know you don't want to destroy the city to

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Speaker 2: save it.

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Speaker 1: Fair enough, Ken, listen, thank you very much. I do

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Speaker 1: appreciate your time and appreciate your expertise as well. That's

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Speaker 1: Kevin Ken Davis, former Kayinger Order principal architect, also former

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Speaker 1: teacher at Victoria University School of Architecture. For more from

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Speaker 1: Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news Talks at

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